


In the Morning Light

by lenapinewoods



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 12:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18873265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenapinewoods/pseuds/lenapinewoods
Summary: Lavender meets someone unexpected at St Mungo’s.





	In the Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



> Written for [femmefest](https://femmefest.livejournal.com) 2018\. Thanks for [Kiertorata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiertorata) for the beta!

It’s too early to be awake but Lavender can’t fall back asleep. Maybe it’s the rhythmic pounding of the rain or perhaps the silence inside the hospital that’s awakened her, she doesn’t know, but it’s barely 6 a.m. and she’s lying in her bed wide awake. Lavender looks at the ceiling and imagines what she must look like; her legs tangled in the sheets, her dark curls spread across the pillow, her face marred with cursed scars that will never heal. The room around her is white except for the thin, pale blue curtains – why they are so thin she doesn’t know, maybe to create an illusion of not being locked away from the world inside the thick walls of the hospital. It doesn’t work very well though, not for Lavender. She has never felt so alone and isolated in her life as she has during the last month she has spent in St. Mungo.

There’s a creak in the hallway, soft enough to go unnoticed, but Lavender gets on her elbows and looks at the door. It stays shut. Lavender didn’t really expect otherwise, it’s not breakfast time yet and there’s no one who would visit her this early – not that there are too many people visiting her at any time of the day. She hesitates a little, but then she slips out of the bed and lays her bare feet onto the cold white stone floor. There’s another creak, now louder – it sounds like someone has just exited the hallway outside her room and entered the day room. Lavender feels a little dizzy, she probably got up too quickly or maybe it’s all the whiteness, the screaming whiteness all around her that makes everything seem blurred and hazy.

The hallway is empty like she expects, but the door to the day room is ajar. Lavender pushes it open slowly, just wide enough to see who’s inside. She ducks her head in, and there, on the other side of the room in front of the window stands someone familiar. In the grey morning light Pansy Parkinson looks like an old black and white picture, with her 20’s style bob and a cigarette between her puffed lips, her eyes closed and long dark lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. Lavender inhales sharply and in a fraction of a second Pansy’s eyes are fixed on her. She looks terrible; she has dark circles under her eyes and although her hair looks flawless, there are signs of negligence in her appearance. The cloak she is wearing, as expensive as it looks, is a little worn and her eyeliner is a bit smudged, as if she hasn’t been very careful when she applied it or rather, like she hasn’t bothered to remove her makeup from the day before and hasn’t put much effort in correcting it today.

Pansy looks like she hasn’t slept all night, or maybe in a month, and that might very well be true, Lavender thinks. But when Pansy speaks her voice is the same sharp voice Lavender is used to hearing in the hallways of Hogwarts and her words are as sarcastic as ever.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she says, mockingly polite, and takes a deep draw on the cigarette.

Lavender glances at a sign on the wall that portrays an angry looking Mediwitch and says “No Smoking!” in big, bold red letters. She puckers her lips and says, “Give me a hit, will you?”

Pansy lifts an eyebrow and there’s a hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth as she passes the cigarette to Lavender. She takes a few puffs and Pansy says, “I always forget how inclined you Gryffindors are to rule breaking. It must be in your blood or something. There’s a joke that went around among Slytherin girls in Hogwarts that goes, ‘How do you seduce a Gryffindor bloke? Tell him you’re the Forbidden Forest and he’ll do anything to get inside you.’”

Lavender snorts. “Gryffindor blokes are easy. You don’t have to do that much, you can just show them a bit of cleavage and they’re sold,” she says and adds, “Gryffindor blokes are idiots.”

“Your ex sure is,” Pansy says, grinning.

Lavender thinks of Ron briefly; his big, freckeled, steady hands on her body and that proud look he had on his face in the beginning of their relationship when everyone had found out she was his girlfriend. It seems like lifetime ago; so much has happened since. She heard that Ron and Hermione had their first kiss during the Battle of Hogwarts, and it sounded like it had been passionate and romantic and everything a girl could dream of. At least that’s what she used to dream of. She can see how it could’ve been, her fighting alongside Ron instead of Hermione, back to back like a fierce warrior couple, flames blazing around them in the battlefield; her curls wild in the wind and Ron’s face stern and focused.

But instead of her Ron chose Hermione, and Lavender spent half of the battle lying on the floor unconscious. It doesn’t seem so important anymore – she’s starting to think that it might’ve never been Ron she wanted, but an idea of him.

“You know, what you need,” Lavender hears Pansy saying, “is a Slytherin lover. Someone who’s faithful.”

“I don’t think Slytherin blokes are any different, or anything special,” Lavender says, although she remembers having a big crush on Adrian Pucey on her fifth year. He had felt pretty special back then. “I think all blokes are idiots, no matter which House they belong to.”

“Who said anything about blokes?” Pansy says with a smirk. “I, for one, only date women nowadays.”

Lavender feels her eyes widen. “But what about Malfoy?” she blurts and tries to rewind through every single thing she’s ever heard and seen of Pansy Parkinson. She pauses on a memory of a secret interhouse party on the sixth year and replays a scene in her mind in which Pansy had leaned in to give a long and deep kiss to a giggling Mandy Brocklehurst drunk on a disgusting combination of firewhisky and cherry syrup. But it happened during a Spin the Bottle; it doesn’t count, does it?

Pansy jerks her head and laughs. “Draco? He’s queer as a jolly house elf. Don’t say you have forgotten his obsession with a certain Boy Wonder.”

Lavender remembers a DADA class that was interrupted seven times because Draco Malfoy yelled something inappropriate to Harry Potter, who yelled something equally nasty back. Draco being gay explains a lot, now that she thinks of it. And Pansy being into witches does too – no wonder there had been barely any drama between Pansy and Draco, if they weren’t really dating. No wonder they had been such a dominant power couple in Hogwarts.

Lavender feels like she’s failed somehow, however, when information that important has gone unnoticed by her. She took pride in knowing everyone’s business back in Hogwarts.

“But Draco is engaged to Astoria Greengrass,” Lavender remarks. Even though she’s been stuck in the hospital for a month, she has made sure to stay well-informed on everything that’s been happening in the outside world.

“It’s a sham engagement. It’s only for their parents. They’ll break it when things settle down,” Pansy says and blows out smoke slowly.

Lavender lets all this new information sink in. The idea of Pansy being interested in women intrigues her for some reason. Mesmerized, she watches how smoke escapes from between Pansy’s lips that are slightly parted, and a tingling feeling runs through her spine. Pansy stubs the cigarette out on the windowsill and leans against the wall, the curves of her body visible under the thin summer cloak she’s wearing. She looks tired; Lavender hasn’t thought of it much before, but now she thinks about how hard it must be to be Pansy Parkinson after the war. While Lavender is grieving her changed appearance and feels miserable because of a few scars, at least she’s a war hero. Pansy is not only someone who was on the wrong side, she’s also the person who demanded that they turn Harry Potter over to the Dark Lord to avoid a battle. It happened not much over a month ago; Lavender wonders what Pansy has done since then. Lavender remembers Pansy’s terrified face in the Great Hall shortly before Voldemort’s attack and she feels a sudden rush of empathy for Pansy.

“What are you doing here?” Lavender asks, because she’s been so caught up in all the gossip about Draco and Pansy’s sexual orientations that she has forgotten to wonder what has brought Pansy to the hospital day room this early in the morning.

“I came to see you, of course,” Pansy says, her voice still sarcastic, but Lavender notices a hint of gentleness in her eyes.

“No, seriously. Why are you here?” Lavender tilts her head.

“I’m volunteering,” Pansy shrugs and looks away from Lavender. “I saw an add in the _Prophet_. St Mungo’s needs all the help it can get. There are so many people who have been injured in the war who still have to stay at the hospital. Some of them are Muggles.”

“Oh I know,” Lavender says, sounding more bitter than she meant. She regrets her words when she sees a guilty look on Pansy’s face.

“I requested this department,” Pansy says suddenly. “Lycanthropic Accidents and Injuries. I – I heard there’s a baby here, too” she adds and shivers a little. “A half-blood baby who got bitten.”

“The baby’s alright,” Lavender assures. “She’s healing fast. She’ll have scratches, but they won’t be as noticeable as – as mine,” she says and tries her best to look like she doesn’t care that her face is traversed by three deep scars that aren’t healing.

Pansy looks relieved to hear that the baby is doing fine. Then she looks at Lavender, eyes intense and a small, alluring smile on her face. “Just so you know, I didn’t even notice. There’s altogether too many attractive things in you to look at to pay attention to any scars.”

Lavender feels blood rise on her cheeks but doesn’t turn her eyes away. She looks at Pansy’s plump lips again, curved into a teasing smile and she wonders what it would be like to lean in and kiss her.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a sudden noise at the door. A tired looking healer walks in and looks at Pansy frowning. “Miss Parkinson? They told me you had signed in already. Please come to my office at the end of the hallway and we’ll find you something to do.” Without expecting a reply, the healer walks out, leaving the door open behind him.

Pansy looks at Lavender and leans closer. “I’ll find you later,” she whispers, her breath warm and her lips brushing slightly against Lavender’s neck.

She gives Lavender a little smirk and follows the healer out of the room.

The hospital isn’t so quiet anymore, people are starting to wake up. Lavender walks back to her room slowly. She lives the door ajar; the smell of cigarette still lingers in the hallway. She sits on the bed and smiles to herself. For the first time after the war she feels a sparkle of excitement in her chest. Maybe everything will turn out alright.


End file.
